Channing Frye’s Mother Developing a ‘Basketball Moms’ TV Show

Unlike the gossipy and trashy “Basketball Wives”, the television show being developed by Channing Frye’s mother, Karen, aims to tell the stories of the women who raised some of the League’s players. From NBA.com: “We get so caught up in what our sons are doing that we forget what our dreams were,’ Karen Frye said. ‘Before I had Channing, film was my thing. I worked for NBC here in Phoenix, I got an Emmy. I’ve had wonderful positions — vice president of Grand Canyon University. And when he got in the NBA, all of a sudden it was like I don’t have to do anything. And that didn’t work.’ So Karen Frye went back to work. She used her TV background to put together a Web-based show, ‘Girlfriends Talk Sports,’ which ran on Fox Sports Arizona.com for more than a year, featuring her interviews with players and chats with women, including other mothers of NBA players. They talked about their sons, but they talked about everything else, too. (The companion blog is still going strong.) She got Chris Bosh to acknowledge that people have long thought him ‘weird’ because of his quiet nature, and informed Danny Granger — after the interview began — that she was the mother of the player Granger got in a fight with in 2010. While she tries to find a permanent TV home for ‘Girlfriends,’ she’s also developing another show, ‘Basketball Moms,’ which follows six women who live together as they share stories about their sons and confront their own issues, including trying to lose weight and get in better shape. The demo featured Frye; Pam Long, Rip Hamilton’s mother; Thelma Harris, the mother of Heat forward Dexter Pittman; Monja Willis, mother of the Thunder’s James Harden; Queen Warrick, the mother of Suns forward Hakim Warrick, and Linda Shanklin, the mother of 76ers’ All-Star forward Andre Iguodala. In doing both shows, Frye confirmed what she had long suspected — women watch sports, in increasing numbers. But they watch them differently than men. Frye saw the shows as empowering to a group of consumers who never saw their opinions validated.”